Sabbath in Our Christian Home

Implementing a Sabbath rhythm has been so life giving over the past year and a half. One of the ways we saw the kindness and provision of the Lord during pandemic was through Sabbath. For Christmas 2019, my Dad received the book The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry by John Mark Comer. My husband and I snatched it out from under the tree and both read it before he could even get his hands on it. We were so hungry for this teaching, without really knowing so. We quick implemented many of the principles that Comer details, most notably a Sabbath rhythm.

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We adapted what made sense for our family, and we landed on a beautiful weekly rhythm. Little did we know that a few short months later the world would shut down. Sabbath became our anchoring point in the week. It was something we all looked forward to, that restored us. We needed Sabbath. “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath” (Mark 2:27).

As I began to write a post detailing our homeschool choices for the 2021-22 school year, I realized how Sabbath has become an invaluable part of our family life, and a gentle time of spiritual formation for our children. I struggled to flesh out the wholeness and beauty of our homeschool without talking about Sabbath. I quickly realized I needed to write another post about how we implement Sabbath in our Christian home, not just for homeschoolers.

How We Sabbath

Our Sabbath runs from approximately sundown on Saturday through sundown on Sunday (this more loosely translates to dinner-dinner as the sunset varies so widely lol!). The daytime of Saturday is our Preparation Day: we complete chores, errands, grocery shopping, house cleaning– everything needed to set us up for rest. It takes work to rest!

Come dinnertime on Saturday we shut off all social media, chores, and shopping (even online shopping. It’s harder than I thought to not open the Amazon app for 24 hours. Sheesh). Incidentally, my kids love that they can count on not being dragged around to stores on Sundays. 🙂

We then sit down to dinner in the dining room with a tablecloth (fancy, right?). When daylight savings time ends from October/November-March we light a candle as well. (That’s a fun yearly tradition– to take the candle out to mark that change in the calendar, and put it away in the Spring. Kids really thrive on those traditions, even when they’re seemingly small.)

Our dinner consists of something enjoyable for everyone and relatively easy to prepare/clean up– for us, it’s typically homemade pizzas. We also indulge in a dessert at Sabbath dinner, the only night of the week we have a dessert. I’m not much of a baker, so we typically have something packaged. Ice cream cones are met with squeals of delight.

During our meal, we expose our kids to beauty for their souls!

• We learn a hymn each month. On the first week of the month we introduce the hymn by watching a video and learning a bit of background/history of the lyrics and song’s composition. The hymn is then added to a playlist that we listen to during the sabbath meal (we also play it periodically during the week. I LOVE that my kids can name their favorite hymns!). In the past we have used Hosanna, Loud Hosannas student hymnal and followed the hymn schedule from Happy Hymnody (both have background info about the hymns and lyrics/music- Happy Hymnody is a free resource; buy the hymnal from the publisher, not Amazon as the price is crazy on there!). More recently we’ve been using the Heritage Hymn Guide, which explores 15 hymns with links to a variety of styles of music. So, if you’re studying “Blessed Assurance,” you’ll be directed to videos of that hymn sung in contemporary, traditional, bluegrass, soulful, country, and instrumental versions.
• We take turns sharing items from the previous week that we’re grateful for and record these in a journal– my kids can’t wait to jump into this! I struggle to enjoy a few bites of my meal before they insist I start writing! (Incidentally, we read through the whole year’s lists on New Year’s Eve. The BEST!)
• We make entries in our Naturalist’s Notebook— any “firsts” or exciting things we observed in nature the previous week. (First harvests, first fireflies, when the crepe myrtle tree bloomed….)
• We practice catechism, using New City Catechism for Kids; one question/answer per week, which we practice sporadically throughout the week whenever we think of it. It’s really pretty simple, though it sounds perhaps intimidating.
• We play a table game like trivia from Professor Noggin, Brain Quest cards, or conversation starters from Chat Pack for Kids. I’ve got my eye on a deck of Table Topics for Christmas– we enjoyed the samples that Chick Fil A handed out years ago.
• New this year I’ll be simply presenting an art piece at the table– and allow conversation to flow as it might. I’m using the picture study from Schoolhouse Grace, which provides 25 classic pieces of art that are inspired by the life of Christ. For example, lesson 18 features: Landscape with the Parable of the Sower, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1552.

After dinner we watch a family show together. We’ve been loving Rock the Park, which explores one National Park per 25 minute episode, following the adventures of two young adult friends as they go “off the beaten path.” We’ve also watched The Slugs and Bugs Show, which my kids really enjoy though it is geared for younger kiddos (preschool/early elementary?).

And that’s Saturday night! It looks like a lot typed out, but it is so life giving. The entire family adores our whole routine.

On Sundays, we have been viewing church online through pandemic, and we have also been working our way through What’s In The Bible, an older Phil Vischer show that is just truly awesome.

The rest of the day Sunday is reserved for family time– we usually see extended family, enjoy meals together, play board games, go hiking…

When Sunday dinner comes, it’s back to preparing for the week ahead, but we now have hearts and souls filled with rest and goodness.

That’s Sabbath in our home 🙂 I hope this has been an encouraging post to you. When we first started out, we really took one thing at a time, and it grew to what it is today. We began with putting aside social media and shopping. We added in more to our mealtime with the passing weeks. May the Lord bless you as you set aside time to focus on Him and his goodness and beauty!